


The Quality of Mercy

by Valerin Berenghar (Valerin)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Gen, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Injury, One Shot, Survival cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27704219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valerin/pseuds/Valerin%20Berenghar
Summary: Brock cleared his throat and looked him in the eye. “You’ll start feeling better soon.”The Asset pulled back his hand and nodded.Even with a working jaw, he wasn’t the most chatty guy on the team.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Brock Rumlow
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	The Quality of Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> For Leo.
> 
> I wrote this back in 2016 and I never posted it for some reason. I can't remember for the life of me _why_ I wrote it, only who I wrote it for. So here it is: a strange, unedited and not beta-read glimpse of how my writing style was four years ago.

The human body was tough.

A millennium of studies, trials, and experiments, and the scientists have stopped dropping their jaws at the marvels unearthed. Because by now they know exactly how much the bones of the body can withhold before they shatter. They know all about the fine-tuned mechanism as medicine dissolves within the bloodstream by looking at numbers on a flat-screen. They glimpse at the past and predict the future by peering through a microscope. 

It was all just facts given from an endless study of the already dead; of gathering data of damage already done. Information collected and presented on a clean sheet for the lab coats to discuss over a cup of coffee; one-dimensional and inadequate, not covering the most important aspect of it all: the pain.

For example, the human hand has twenty-seven small bones neatly puzzled together and throwing a punch, a _real_ punch, fucking hurt.

Brock Rumlow knew this because he has thrown a lot of punches in his days. Some justified, others not, and some just entirely for the sake of professionalism. But punching the snot out of someone was more than just numbers and estimations scribbled down in ink.

When the Asset had gotten an unfortunate kiss with a robotic sledgehammer during yesterday’s whirlwind of a mission, the tech team had said that it was alright; that he could handle it and it wasn’t just the way they phrased it that dried the oil between the cogs in Brock’s head, but the way they had said it.

He could handle it. Like they had hit him with a hammer in the head once before just to see if that was something that would affect his battle performance.

Spoiler alert, it didn’t. Because he could handle it -- he _was_ handling it for what Brock could see. The Asset just sat there on the ground, back straight as an arrow and gaze somewhere far off, never once taking his eyes off whatever distant fleck he was staring at.

He was a tough kid.

Because he was a kid. Now that the tech team had cut his hair short and shaved off the hobo beard, it was like they had cut ten years off his face in the process. He looked young -- younger than Matthews who looked like he barely even had hair on his balls and that said something.

Whoever the Asset was, wherever he came from, whatever they had done to him, he was the walking impersonation of the depthless results scientists loved. He didn’t grunt or groan or grimace when injured; it was like they had managed to cut the cord between the brain and the nerve when they decided to lobotomize him.

“Hey Sarge.” Murphy leaned close enough that Brock felt his hot, hushed breath wash over his ear, “what’s with the thing in the guy’s nose?”

Brock shouldered him away, eyes primed on the map in his hands. “It’s a nasogastric tube.”

“A what?”

“It’s a damn feeding tube.”

“What, the guy doesn’t eat?”

Brock gave him a narrowed look. “How about you try eating with a shattered jaw?”

It was the tech team being lazy, careless even, implying that since it was taped in place and protected beneath the muzzle, it simply wasn’t there; wasn’t in the way; didn’t interfere with his combat performance. Because why pull out the tube for a mission that would last less than twelve hours, one that would require nothing but setting up the Asset and have him pull a trigger?

The problem with that was that it had been an estimation. Twelve hours on the ground, an optimistic theory. Ink on paper, words jumping from one mouth to the next, fragile from the start.

Whoever that had planned their op must have been both blind and deaf and boiled in _shit_ because the enemy had smelled them from a mile away and that single pull of a trigger had turned into a hundred instead. A firefight in the middle of Taliban-fucking-territory, two of their own left to fry in the sun and their ride blown to hell.

And now they were here out here in the middle of goddamn nowhere, cowering in some abandoned ruin with a hundred clicks of endless sand in either direction.

It fucking sucked.

“Doesn’t he heal really fast?” asked Murphy, frowning like the confused little kid he was, voice climbing lower, “I heard he’s some kind of mutant—I mean, he must be with that arm, right?”

“Don’t ask and you’ll live longer,” Brock mumbled as he pushed himself upright and tucked the map back in his pocket, steps quick as he walked away from Murphy’s post-battle cackle. He was all unharnessed puppy energy and big, full-blown pupils, just something Brock couldn’t stand when his ears still rang after a close grenade.

If possible, the Asset sat straighter, bracing like he expected to be kicked around when Brock approached, all gleaming eyes filled with confusion as he looked up, his shoulders going down an inch when Brock just stopped before him.

“You alright kid?”

The nod was brittle, a single bob of his head. His jaw hung loose, the bruising still black and angry, lips chapped and cracked. Brock hadn’t been there, but he had heard all about yesterday from Rollins -- an experimental mutant had gone wild in some higher-tier lab and their only countermeasure had been the Asset.

A shattered jaw, a severe concussion, half a dozen broken ribs, and a sprained wrist later and they were in the clear.

And they had still deployed him the day after.

Because he could take it. For all the secrets HYDRA had locked up in their vaults, they couldn’t just give him the week it would take for the bones to set and bruises to fade. Four times the accelerated healing factor and it wasn’t worth shit right now.

Brock crouched down and flicked himself on the nose as he asked, “They packed some food for that thing?”

The asset shook his head like it hurt to move.

Brock ran a hand over his face. He didn’t have to be a doctor to know that the busted jaw hurt even worse today when the flesh had been given time to swell and ache around the shattered bones. When he looked up at the Asset again and met that ready-to-bolt look, Brock thought that it probably wouldn’t be too hard to pull the tube out, but they hadn’t exactly packed down some Lipton Ice tea or anything that didn’t require chewing.

Hell, sixteen hours into the mission, and all they had left was water for half a day and snack bars, all of which was supposed to last until whenever the hell evac decided to show up.

Brock looked back at the squad rubbing shoulders at the other end of the tattered room. They were sitting ducks, but at least they weren’t out in the sun. The heat had almost finished what the firefight hadn’t and even in the dingy light, they were all glossed over, sweaty and gross and sand sticking everywhere.

He got up and walked over to them. “Where’s Finley’s bag?” he asked as he glanced over the scattered backpacks by the wall.

“Here,” Johnson said as he held up the messenger bag with the red cross.

“Why do you need it?” asked Murphy with his wobbly grin.

Brock took the bag and smacked Murphy on the back of his head for good measure. “Stop being so goddamn curious,” he said before he turned around and walked back to the Asset. Brock sank to his knees, unbuckling and unzipping the bag. He plucked out the saline kit.

It wouldn’t be much, but hopefully it would be enough to keep him from turning into a raisin in this heat.

“Take off your glove and hold your hand out for me,” he said as he sanitized his hands and snapped on a pair of blue gloves. He watched as the Asset reached out his right hand, letting it hover between them.

His hand trembled.

And it wasn’t the small not-being-able-to-keep-your-hand-still type of tremble, but the hard, rough shake. Brock frowned as he took the Asset’s hand and pinched the skin, not all that surprised when the skin didn’t sink back immediately.

“You must be breathing in sand by now,” Brock mumbled as he worked the kid’s sleeve, pulling it high enough to secure the tourniquet around his wrist. He let the Asset’s hand rest on his knee and even through the fabric of his pants, Brock felt how cold his fingers were.

“Clench and unclench your hand a few times.”

The Asset made a fist once, twice, thrice and then the already bulging veins on the back of his hands popped out even more. When Brock heard him gulp, he looked up and found him staring intently -- still looking confused, still with his jaw hanging loose on its hinges, still looking like it took everything in him not to make a sound.

He had pretty eyes. Blue like the water by a white sand beach, but with the cold of a glacier and it wasn’t just that they were pretty, but young, too. His hair was wavy now that it was short. Curly almost.

Brock ducked his head as he readied the kit, opening the packages needed, and swapped the back of the Asset’s hand using an alcohol wipe. He tossed it aside before he gently traced a fingertip over a promising vein, anchored it using his thumb, and picked up the needle with his other hand, double-checked that he kept the bevel up and adjusted the angle because _fuck_ it was a long time since he last did this. He licked his lips, ignored the way he felt the sweat break out across his upper lip, and slid the needle into the skin nice and easy, saw the flashback, and advanced the catheter, pulling back the needle as easy as it went in.

“Tell me if this hurts,” Brock mumbled and then he looked up, catching himself, “groan or something so I know,” he added as he loosened the tourniquet and gently screwed on the saline flush, slowly injecting it and washed away the flashback.

He taped the catheter in place, attached the IV, adjusted the flow, and hung it on a stray nail in the wall above the Asset. It was when he had discarded the trash when he looked back up at him, there was the faintest curl to the right side of his lip. Hadn’t Brock stared at his plush mouth, eyes gliding over the split lip and the bruising stretching beyond the lines of his mouth, he would never have seen it.

Brock cleared his throat and looked him in the eye. “You’ll start feeling better soon.”

The Asset pulled back his hand and nodded.

Even with a working jaw, he wasn’t the most chatty guy on the team. He wasn’t like Johnsson who talked about his wife and kids and how much he looked forward to getting off base; wasn’t like Murphy who bounced around like a rubber ball by anything that moved; wasn’t like everyone else who barked at every joke told.

He was just plain. But not boring, never boring. Hadn’t it been because Brock knew everything about him -- blood type, combat history, what made him tick and flick, he would have still been shrouded in the veil of mystery. Now he was just easy.

Easy to understand, easy to control, easy to pity.

Poor kid, to wake up innocent and with piss drenching his trousers every time. What they did wasn’t humane; wasn’t mission-critical for most operations, but it was a safeguard to keep everything that made him into someone rather than something at bay. Brock had even read the full uncensored dossier on him back in the days where it was even a name listed, but back then he hadn’t cared as much and now he scolded himself for not remembering.

Perhaps it was James or Julian or maybe even Jonas. Something that wasn’t talked about like a corporate resource. The Asset. It wasn’t even a cool code name.

“Get some shuteye while that thing empties,” Rumlow blinked and his eyes felt dry like he had been staring for some time, “after you can take watch after Franklin.”

The Asset nodded again as he shifted a little against the wall, eyelids drooping like that was the order he had been waiting for all along. Brock mustered up a tight smile for no good reason at all before he gathered the trash, tucked it into the medical bag, and got up, crossing the room to the rest of the squad.

“You forgot to take him out for a piss,” Rollins mumbled as Brock sank down next to him.

“He’s not that far gone.”

Rollins narrowed his eyes at him. “We’ll see when that in fifteen minutes.”

“Shut up,” Brock muttered as he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, “eat your damn Snickers and wake me up in an hour.”

He still had to go over the map, double-check their coordinates and try radio central to see where the hell evac was and if they couldn’t catch a lift from this hellhole, he had to find figure out how they were gonna cross twenty clicks of desert with what little provisions they had left.

His head ached at the thought.

But that was later.

He listened to the sounds around him. To his right, he could hear the nervous horse giggle from Murphy and the sound of a deck shuffling; to his left, he could hear Rollins fumbling with the wrapping around his snickers bar.

If evac wasn’t fucking themselves in the asses for the sole sake of pleasure, they would be stateside in thirty-six hours. Tomorrow at this time, he would be able to enjoy an ice-cold Coca-Cola back at base with the comforting knowledge that he would be home sooner rather than later. Home in his ratty basement apartment with the overflowing hamper and empty fridge and--

\--fuck that thought.

In twenty-four hours, he wouldn’t be here and for now, that was enough.

* * *

Brock slept for what both felt like and probably was, a second.

It took him a full five minutes to get moving. He ate while he looked over the map and radioed command without any luck, and after he took the watch on the southside of the ruin during the hours it took for the scalding sun to die down into a dark purple.

“The kids are fast asleep,” Johnson mumbled as he came to replace him, “except for the Asset. Told him he ought to get some fucking sleep, but I’m guessing I don’t have stripes enough for him to start listening to me.”

Brock nodded curtly. “I’ll see to it,” he said before he went inside and clicked his flashlight into life.

The Asset sat alone with the empty IV bag dangling over his shoulder, the tube since long disconnected.

“Hey,” Brock mumbled, shining the light to his chest, “you tired?”

The crisp light reflected just enough so that Brock could see him nod his head.

Brock placed his rifle against the wall before he glanced over to the other end of the room, shining the light at the rest of the squad cooped up tight in a row. Hadn’t there been rubble at one end and Isaac snoring at the other, they could have tucked themselves in with them because it was colder than hell right now and while starting a fire was tempting, death was not.

“Let's get you some fluids and then we’ll bunk down, alright?” Brock said in a low undertone, not bothering to check for a reply before he walked over to the other side of the room, grabbing both his backpack and the medical bag before returning.

He put the flashlight between his teeth as he dug up another saline bag and didn’t bother with the gloves when he quickly sanitized his hands. He hooked the IV in place and when the fresh bag dangled on the nail above the Asset, he sat back and took the flashlight in his hand again.

“Lay down and face the wall,” he whispered and watched that small stalemate of a moment where the Asset just looked at him. Even in the poor light, his eyes twinkled.

But then he moved, gingerly so to lay down on his side.

Brock pulled out the blanket from his backpack and spread it over them as he scooted closer. He clicked off the flashlight, put it away, and when he finally laid down, he did so close.

His crotch pressed against the Assets’ ass.

Here was the thing, it wasn’t fucking gay when it was about survival. Falling asleep when the temperature was about to plummet to sub-zero was impossible. It wasn’t intimate, feeling the bulk of another body pressing up against your own, but it was comfortable.

Brock slid a hand beneath the Asset’s bulletproof vest and uniform jacket, the palm of his hand resting comfortably around the curve of his flank.

He was like a racehorse ready to bolt out of its gate.

“I’m not going to stick my dick up your wound-up ass,” Brock mumbled because the warmth was making it too easy to fall asleep, “get some fucking rest.”


End file.
